[TenTec] ORION II CW pile up readability related question

[Robert Carroll]

K4DLI told me about a headphone amp he uses with his Orion II.  It is a
Ramsey kit which sells for $29.  I bought one and found that for me, as with
K4DLI, it allows me to run the Orion volume controls no higher than about
50%.  Prior to this Jim (K4DLI) and I had been running the Orion AF gain
high and the RF gain low, but we both had noticed that the Orion AF control
seems to give out of gas about 80% to max and the audio did not seem as
clean as at lower settings.  Anyway, I now leave the Ramsey amp in the
headphone line at a low level all the time.  The overall audio sounds much
cleaner to me.

73
Bob W2WG

-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Gary Tuck
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 10:21 PM
To: Ten Tec Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TenTec] ORION II CW pile up readability related question

I feed the audio thru a Timewave DSP-59+ and an external speaker with  
a built in headphone jack (SP-230).  This allows a separate AF volume  
control and narrow DSP audio filtering if necessary--it seldom is.  In  
this configuration, I have the AF set at 54%,  because I feed the  
filter from the speaker jack in the rear of the rig.  If I have the  
headphones plugged into the VII's front panel jack, the AF is down  
about 2%.  Either my ears or my headphones are very sensitive and  
anything above that hurts.   I always use headphones.

I use the PRE on 17m and above and often on 20m.  I turn down the RF  
gain until the background noise is at a low level so that it's not  
tiring to listen.  This may be anywhere between 50-90% depending upon  
condx.   If a weak signal appears while tuning, I tweak the RF gain to  
see if I can improve the S/N ratio.  Sometimes I can.  I've not found  
an occasion where using the ATTN helps.  Very occasionally, engaging  
the NR helps in comfortably copying a signal.  At times the NB helps,  
especially with the Chinese ORH radar.

I use AGC medium on CW.  On occasion, I've used FAST with the RF gain  
turned way down if it helps readability.

Gary - W7TEA
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